Monday: Hili dialogue

September 23, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to another damn week: it’s Monday, September 23, and National Great American Pot Pie Day. (I’m not sure what distinguishes American pot pies from the many other versions throughout the world (the UK has them, and they’re a great pub lunch)

It’s also Fish Amnesty Day, Museum Day, National Snack Stick Day, National Wildlife Ecology Day and International Rabbit Day. 

Here are the first four week’s in the life of a bunny:

And my laundry bag scared me this morning, looking like a scary face:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 23 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*It seems that Israel is about to retaliate against Hezbollah’s repeated rocket attacks, but in a major way. Malgorzata sent this short video message from IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, warning Lebanese civilians near Hezbollah facilities to move. Malgorzata says, “An IDF appeal to civilians in Southern Lebanon to move out of the harm’s way. There were also TV and radio appeals in Arabic, text messages etc. It seems an Israeli attack is imminent.”  Places like the WaPo are characterizing this as an “offensive action,” implying that Israel is widening the war, but as we all know, it was Hezbollah who has been firing missiles into Lebanon by the dozens, and has done so since October 8 of last year. See next Nooz item, too.

From this morning’s NYT:

Israeli warplanes struck at least 300 sites across Lebanon on Monday in an exceptionally fierce bombardment targeting the militant group Hezbollah. Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes had killed at least 100 people and injured more than 400, as rapidly accelerating violence brought the two sides ever closer to all-out war.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, fired dozens of rockets and drones into northern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the city of Tzfat and around the Sea of Galilee, a day after its deputy chief pledged to continue attacking until Israel ended its military campaign in Gaza. Israeli leaders, for their part, have announced “a new stage” of the war intended to stop Hezbollah from firing at Israeli border communities.

The Israeli strikes on Monday were preceded by what Lebanese authorities called “a large number” of automated messages sent to residents of Beirut, the capital, and other regions warning them to evacuate areas where Hezbollah had secreted weapons. The Israeli military published a map showing 19 villages and towns in southern Lebanon but did not say which, if any, would be targeted.

*There are rumors that Hamas head Yahya Sinwar, who’s been cowering in the tunnels under Gaza, has been killed. But those rumors are unsubstantiated, so stay tuned:

The IDF stated on Sunday that they can neither confirm nor deny reports on the possible death of Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar.

Among sources consulted by The Jerusalem Post, a top source poured cold water on the notion, another source – who would be expected to have information – said they had no real information on it, while others noted disagreements within the defense establishment.

No sources referred to any kind of specific assassination operation that the IDF had carried out to kill him.

*Hezbollah has decided to retaliate big time for Israel’s beeper attack and increased bombing of missile launchers.  In effect, a war is going on, though neither side has crossed any borders on foot:

Some 85 rockets were launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Haifa area in northern Israel on Sunday morning, following overnight launches at the Jezreel Valley, the terror group’s deepest rocket fire into Israel since the beginning of the war in October.

A teenager was killed when he crashed his vehicle as sirens sounded in the early hours of the morning, and at least three people were injured as a result of the rocket fire.

The military said that some of the rockets fired toward Haifa were intercepted, while others impacted Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of the northern coastal city, injuring three people.

The victims were a man in his 70s who was in moderate condition, and another man in his 70s and a 16-year-old girl who were lightly hurt. All three were taken to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center for treatment.

One rocket hit a home in Moreshet in the Lower Galilee, causing significant damage but no injuries.

In a statement, Hezbollah claimed that the rocket fire targeted a Rafael defense firm facility in the Haifa area.

The Iran-backed terror group said the rockets were in response to the pager and walkie-talkie blasts in Lebanon last week, which killed more than 30 members of the terror group and wounded thousands of others. The attack was attributed to Israel, which has not commented.

The thing is, many of Hezbollah’s missiles were fired at towns that were not Jewish but Arab, including Nazareth, comprising almost entirely Druze Arab and Christian Arabs. The Arab Muslims are killing other Arabs, most of them Muslims.  Now I’m not overly worried about Hezbollah, which I think is cowed, though their missile supply seems to be inexhaustible. Instead I’m worried about Iran getting into the show. Although Secretary of State Blinken said that nobody should take advantage of Israel when it was engaged in Gaza (translation: Hezbollah should cool it), Blinken has since become a tool of the ignorant “two staters”, and, in fact, I’m not sure he even cares what happens to Israel.  Right now, in fact, the U.S. should be putting pressure on Hezbollah. Why hasn’t it?

*A prime example of the reportorial violence of the NYT, an article called “For Mideast foes, diplomacy takes a back seat to military force“. An excerpt:

The last, best chance for a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinian authorities came in 2008. Then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was prepared to give up territory in the West Bank, and allow some refugees to reclaim land. He was even willing to relinquish control of Jerusalem’s Old City to an international committee as part of recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state.

And then the potential deal fell apart, for reasons that Mr. Olmert still finds difficult to explain. “This was something that would have changed the Middle East,” he said in an interview about his failed talks with the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas. “He was not ready to take any risk.”

Mr. Abbas has said he was not given a proper opportunity to examine the proposed map of the West Bank and asked for more time. Days later, Mr. Olmert resigned under a cloud of corruption accusations, and the deal died.

No one in Israel today is thinking about such peace talks, amid fears that a sovereign Palestinian state would find it easier to mount another attack like the one Hamas undertook last Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and setting off the war in Gaza.

Diplomacy has taken a back seat to military force, reflecting years of distrust and failed deals that have all but cemented the belief among the adversaries that neither side will negotiate in good faith. Officials and experts doubt those attitudes will be reversed any time soon.

Among the democratic nations it is widely agreed that Israel has a right to defend itself from the so-called ring of fire it faces from Iran and its proxy fighters in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen that want to destroy Israel.

But last week’s deadly pager and walkie-talkie explosions against Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon — followed by the strike on Friday in Beirut targeting a senior Hezbollah commander that killed at least 45 people — have fueled concerns that Israel is pivoting from cease-fire negotiations to free hostages in favor of military action that could escalate the regional conflict.

. . . Diplomacy no longer seems to be a priority, she said, under the increasingly combative policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. “I think it reflects this government’s opinion and policy, generally,” Ms. Rayten Marom said. “Netanyahu, with his extremist coalition partners, chose and still are choosing this path.”

This is basically a big sleazy lie. The Olmert deal fell apart because Arafat walked away from the table, as the Palestinians have walked away from the table many times before. Israel has never preferred war over diplomacy; it is the country that always offered deals to the Palestinians, who have expressed their intention to get rid of Israel. Finally, Israel has never attacked Palestine unless in retaliation for an attack or to forestall imminent violence. I detect the strong odor of mendacity.

*I can’t resist highlighting this WSJ op-ed column after Laura Helmuth said I criticized Scientific American‘s increasing ideological corruption simply because “Jerry has a lot of time on his hands.”  I won’t respond to her on a family-oriented site, but you can imagine how I feel about a stupid statement like that.  At any rate, the WSJ piece is called “The Political Scientific American: A very unscientific Harris endorsement shows why voters don’t trust scientific elites.” The entirety:

The scientific clerisy fret about eroding public trust in science, but what do they expect when they act like political partisans? The latest exhibit is an editorial this week endorsing Kamala Harris by the formerly esteemed publication Scientific American.

The magazine has a rich 179-year history of highlighting emerging technology and scientific debates in ways the lay public can understand. So it’s sad to behold its transformation into another progressive mouthpiece, broadcasting opinions on such subjects as gun violence, climate policy and identity politics that masquerade as science. Its Harris endorsement is a classic of this genre.

The editorial repeats favorite straw men on the left—for instance, that Mr. Trump “ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution” because he supports rolling back burdensome regulations and green-energy subsidies. Never mind that emissions declined during the Trump Presidency as cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing replaced coal power.

It also criticizes Mr. Trump’s support as President for “a work requirement as a condition for Medicaid eligibility.” By contrast, the editorial says, Ms. Harris supports “science” and would “improve health” by expanding Medicaid coverage. Who knew “science” supports a bigger welfare state?

Most of the magazine’s swipes at Mr. Trump aren’t related to science or health. “He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living,” the editorial avers.

By disrupting education, the editors don’t mean the Covid school shutdowns backed by teachers unions. They refer to state laws that ban critical race theory in K-12 schools.

The editorial continues: “Even after Trump was injured and a supporter was killed in an attempted assassination, the former president remained silent on gun safety.” Are the editors implying Mr. Trump is partly at fault for his second assassination attempt? They also parrot the mischaracterization of JD Vance’s remark regretting that school shootings have become a “fact of life.”

The more scientists and their magazines imitate an MSNBC roundtable, the more Americans will distrust anything they say.

In fact, I would agree that a Harris administration would be more science-oriented than a Trump administration, and so don’t agree with all the defense of Trump. My point wasn’t that: it was that science magazines shouldn’t do endorsements at all, which have no palpable effect except to reduce trust in both the magazines and science itself. It was, after all, Helmuth who okayed article after woke article having nothing to do with science (see a list here or here), including editorials saying that Mendel, Darwin, and E. O. Wilson were racists (I don’t think Mendel ever said a racist word, much less encountered a person of color). If I have too much time on my hands, Helmuth has too much wokeness in her magazine. (Have a look at this piece, for example, if you want a laugh. It is pure performative Social Justice, having nothing to do with Trump or Harris.)

*When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, I predicted that all the liberal reforms they promised for women would turn out to be lies. And, in fact, that’s exactly what happened, Women can’t go to school, have to cover their heads, faces, and hands, and can’t even speak in public. But things are going further, as the WaPo reports that the Taliban is starting to come down on men, too. They are, as one could have predicted, turning into an Iranian-style theocracy—but worse!

As the Taliban starts enforcing draconian new rules on women in Afghanistan, it has also begun to target a group that didn’t see tight restrictions on them coming: Afghan men.

Women have faced an onslaught of increasingly severe limits on their personal freedom and rules about their dress since the Taliban seized power three years ago. But men in urban areas could, for the most part, carry on freely.

The past four weeks, however, have brought significant changes for them, too. New laws promulgated in late August mandate that men wear a fist-long beard, bar them from imitating non-Muslims in appearance or behavior, widely interpreted as a prohibition against jeans, and ban haircuts that are against Islamic law, which essentially means short or Western styles. Men are now also prohibited from looking at women other than their wives or relatives.

As a result, more are growing beards, carrying prayer rugs and leaving their jeans at home.

These first serious restrictions on men have come as a surprise to many in Afghanistan, according to a range of Afghans, including Taliban opponents, wavering supporters and even members of the Taliban regime, who spoke in phone interviews over the past two weeks. In a society where a man’s voice is often perceived as far more powerful than a woman’s, some men now wonder whether they should have spoken up sooner to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.

“If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now,” said a male resident of the capital, Kabul, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity or that only their first names be used due to fears of drawing unwanted scrutiny from the regime. “Now, everyone is growing a beard because we don’t want to be questioned, humiliated,” he said.

This can be attributed only to religion. And in this case, a dictatorial, authoritarian, and completely delusional belief in a fictitious book supposedly dictated by an angel to an illiterate Arab sitting in a cave. Because of that book, millions and millions of people have been and will be deprived of freedom. Think of all the women whose dreams have been crushed! Now the men, too, lose their freedom of not just appearance, but of behavior.

*Princess Kate made her first public appearance since she was diagnosed with cancer after abdominal surgery in January. Well, that’s the AP’s headline, but in fact she’s made two appearances:

Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since she announced she had completed chemotherapy and would return to some public duties.

Kate and her husband, Prince William, were seen Sunday attending church with King Charles III and Queen Camilla near their royal Balmoral estate in Scotland.

Kate, 42, announced on Sept. 9 that she had completed treatment six months after revealing she had an undisclosed type of cancer. Her announcement came six weeks after Buckingham Palace announced that the king was being treated for cancer.

In a video announcing her progress, she said the path to full recovery would be long and she would take it day by day. She said she would undertake some limited engagements through the end of the year.

While she stepped away from most public duties during her treatment, Kate made two appearances earlier this year. First, during the king’s birthday parade in June, known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the men’s final at Wimbledon in July, where she received a standing ovation.

Her announcement that the path of recovery would be wrong makes me believe that she had a pretty serious diagnosis, and I can’t help speculating about what form of cancer she had. Since it was discovered during abdominal surgery, it could be colon or stomach cancer, or even ovarian cancer—or, really, almost anything else. Regardless, she’s only 42, has three young kids, and her father-in-law also is being treated for cancer. I wish her well.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, who is after all a Jewish cat, shows one of a characteristic feature of Jews: anxiety.

Hili: I’m worried.
A: What about?
Hili: Does it matter?
In Polish:
Hili: Jestem zmartwiona.
Ja: Czym?
Hili: A czy to ma jakieś znaczenie?

*******************

From Cat Memes:

From Richard:

Another one from Cat Memes!:

From Masih: This is a pretty bad mine accident, and Masih pins the blame on the slipshod standards of the Iranian regime:

Trump is selling Trump Coins, a “testament to the resistance of strength of the American people.” It’s the Greatest Coin in the History of the World! They will make history in America!

From Simon, who says this is funny but you can’t unsee it:

 

I used to think that AOC was just a dumb progressives. Now I think she’s an anti-semite without any empathy (but plenty of ambition). She never mentioned those dozens of Druze kids killed in Israel by Hezbollah rockets, either.

This is a fantastic idea, and I think it’s worked well every place it’s been tried:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first one he calls “bizarre and sad“:

Matthew screened a screenplay:

 

20 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. “Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since she announced she had completed chemotherapy and would return to some public duties.”

    Why do people insist on this diminutive? I can understand Megan doing so because she well knows that Catherine doesn’t like it, but why the media?

    1. I see it everywhere. Where did you get the idea she doesn’t like it?

      In any case my best wishes to her. She’s so young to have cancer.

  2. PCC(E) gives the clearest case [*Orson Welles clapping gif*] why it is counterproductive for Scientific American to endorse political figures – one might say political activism of the type you can’t be neutral on a moving train (Howard Zinn).

    Notice as well, the dynamic : the WSJ went and wrote a (dialectical, IMHO) support for the opponent, using the SciAm thing as a starting point – revving up the political warfare.

    It’s a mess, and the science is rendered as a tool beholden to political forces of intimidation.

    I think this book bears mentioning on this topic:

    Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
    Eric Voegelin
    1968, 1997
    Regenery Press, Chicago;
    Washington D.C.

  3. I know that some WEIT readers still follow Space and astronomy programs and activities. I just, over the past couple of hours watched, live, a Soyuz capsule undock from the ISS (International Space Station) and return two cosmonauts and astronaut Tracy Dyson safely to Earth with a landing on the steppe of Kazakstan at 0800EDT this morning. Good video coverage and technical coordination between Russia Roscosmos people and US NASA people. Watched traditional Russian egress process of helping cosmonauts out of the top capsule hatch and carrying them to reclining easy chairs for fifteen minutes or so to get their helmets off and have medical personnel get first vital signs. This was the first gravity the two cosmonauts have felt in over a year and the first weight Tracy has felt in six months. They were then carried, still in their chairs, over to a portable medical tent in which they would change out of the space pressure suits into regular flight suits for their continuing trips to their respective homes, first by helicopter to an airbase about two hours away, then airplanes; Tracy on the NASA jet to Houston, the two cosmonauts to Star City near Moscow. There were about a half dozen NASA astronaut office people on hand to welcome Tracy and all three returning crew were given traditional gifts by the Russian recovery crew….flowers and personalized Russian nesting dolls. I also found it interesting that several dozen Russian tourists, including children, dressed in orange shirts were on hand to greet the return on the Steppe which looked like an infinitely long wheat field.

    There is a SpaceX launch of two NASA astronauts to ISS scheduled for later this week (the “rescue” capsule that Butch and Suni will hitch a ride home on in February). There is so much going on these days in human spaceflight, that it is hard to keep up. But I recommend the Space.com link which is free and runs headlines throughout each day with background stories by their knowledgeable staff writers. I generally scan the headlines a couple of times each day. Their articles usually provide a link to any video coverage of human spaceflight events. link to space.com is https://www.space.com/.

    1. Happy to hear they made it back safely. Love it when countries that can’t get along geopolitically still cooperate on endeavors like this. Thanks for the update.

  4. Afghanistan is terminally screwed.
    Inland mountain places are usually more backwards socially (Kurdistan, Bolivia etc).

    A Soviet friend once told me that without the USSR kicking the Islam out, all the “stans” of the former USSR would be as religious and dysfunctional as Afghanistan. He was probably right but they paid a steep price. Communism is curable, religion much less so.

    D.A.
    NYC

    1. Islam has made a comeback in the Russian Federation and in the Stans but it’s pretty regulated. Authoritarian governments won’t tolerate Afghan-style extremism.

      Nevertheless these Muslim areas are pretty conservative socially compared to the West (of course Christian Russia is more conservative too).

  5. There was a movie called The Race for the Double Helix (1987), with Jeff Goldblum and Tim Pigott-Smith playing the parts of Watson and Crick. This may not be based on the book, however. Anyway, I watched years ago but cannot recall what I thought of it.

    1. With respect to The Scientific American slap down, I’d missed the story about Jedi and followed the link back to it. Wow! That should have put them out of business right then and there.

      Then, I was scrolling through the comments and saw one by “JezGrove” and excitedly thought, oh, he’s back! Alas, that’s from 2021. I need to track better.

      See the cat with the black bowl cut? That, sadly, is how most of the teenage gang bangers look in Tucson. Every week or so another poorly raised 14-17 year old child of Hispanic background has his mugshot flashed over the news as the perp of another murder and they ALL sport these God awful haircuts called the “Edgar”. Don’t know how it caught on but it’s as much a gang marker as certain tattoos used to be.

      Finally, to Hili: Don’t feel bad. I’m NOT Jewish and STILL worry all the time.

  6. As you say, Israel has tried land for peace over and over again to no avail. Also, diplomacy and force are not mutually exclusive. It’s not diplomacy vs. force. The two work hand in hand, often with force providing the incentive to come to the bargaining table.

    In the case of a Hezbollah, it’s simply not tolerable for Israeli citizens to have to abandon their homes in northern Israel in order to keep from perishing under rocket attack. Israel has no choice but to go after the terrorists.

    I find the rumor that Sinwar is dead to be interesting. If he’s still alive, this spreading rumor will force him to provide proof of life to his followers, potentially helping Israel locate him so that they can capture or kill him. If Sinwar is still alive, he’ll show himself soon.

    And finally, I’m glad to see the WSJ take Scientific American on. This once-great magazine of science has gone astray, and is harming confidence in the very institution its existence is meant to promote.

  7. The Afghan situation reminds me of the book Persepolis in some ways. The people want Islamist leadership and think that the end result will be wonderful, but then the situation degrades and they’re all surprised at how bad things get under such a brutal regime.

    Re SciAm: It doesn’t seem very scientific to blow off criticism of the magazine as someone having too much time on his hands. Science involves criticism and refutation. But I’m sure in her mind, she’s doing “god’s work” by taking political stances, and any criticism of that is misguided or ill-informed at best, and backwards and malicious at the worst, so none of it is worth considering.
    I don’t see any risk to science with a Trump administration, but Helmuth’s definition of science includes the government supporting the nonsense that boys are girls if they say they are, so if a Trump administration ends that lie, then I suppose her own view of “science” would be harmed.

    1. “It doesn’t seem very scientific to blow off criticism of the magazine as someone having too much time on his hands.”

      This is also how fraudulent scientific research (and, come to think of it, lots of other kinds of fraud and corruption) is often defended by the fraudsters: “I’m just trying to get some work done here, but my critics don’t have anything better to do than scrutinize my Western blots/missing data/p-hacked statistics/social justice posturing.” The posts at Andrew Gelman’s blog are full of examples.

      statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

      1. The better example of “too much time on your hands” is the science magazine weighing in on politics.

  8. Hmm, I don’t see that scary face…

    Re: the Taliban. The total purdah won’t just crush women’s dreams. What’s worse is that it will eventually render women so collectively ignorant of the world that they will be incapable of even formulating dreams in the first place.

    For the same reason, they will not be able to protest – that is, not just because they’re physically prevented, but because they won’t know that alternatives even exist. This to me is one of the most depressing aspects since it eliminates even a shred of a chance that this hideous misogynistic regime will ever be able to reform from the inside.

  9. Israel clearly has reason to retaliate against Hezbollah rocket attacks, but I am not yet convinced that this is the primary motive. Ultimately, all eyes are on Iran. Should Israel take significant action against Iran’s nuclear program, then it will be advantageous to have eliminated the threat of a massive counterattack from the north while so engaged.

  10. “Timothy Lea”, who also scripted a couple of Bond films, was contracted to write a screenplay of The Double Helix.

    My name is Bond – Hydrogen Bond.

  11. One of the fond memories of my time at Stanford was all the Chronicle articles on Doda. Just had to google her now, where I found that “Carol Doda’s twin 44s will soon become part of the permanent collection at the SF Museum of Art .” Alas, never saw them in person.
    On to a less important subject: I am no fan of Netanyahu, but I do credit him with seeing the impossibility of a two-state solution well before me. It will be “From the river to the sea…” The only question is, will it be “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” or “From the river to the sea, Israel will be free.” I go with option two.

  12. Dammit, are we just all going to pretend we don’t see the grocer’s apostrophe??? We’ll chalk this one up to insomnia and march on, I suppose. 🤣

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